Ponyboy's Theme
by harprani
Summary: The gang finds and reads Ponyboy's theme two months after the deaths of Johnny and Dally without Pony's knowledge and later they talk to him about it.
1. Discovery

Ponyboy's Theme

* * *

_Hope you enjoy it. It's short, I know. I'm going to try to make the other chapters longer, but I don't think I'm going to make my chapters too long. I'll try. Sorry about typos, I suck at spelling in general. I'm new at this so it's probably going to take me a while to fix all the little mistakes.  


* * *

_

Summary: The gang finds and reads Ponyboy's theme two months after the deaths of Johnny and Dally without Pony's knowledge and later they talk to him about it.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from _**The Outsiders.**_

Soda's POV

I was bored so I decided to poke around Pony's and my room. Normally I would be at work at this time, but today was my day off. Steve and Darry were still at work, and Two-bit, well, you could never tell where he was.

Wow, our house was a mess. There were clothes lying everywhere, along with a couple of empty bottles of beer that someone (probably Two-bit) had left there a long time ago, and papers and books were all over the place.

I looked around, I basically knew what was in our room except for on Pony's desk and I thought I could start there.

Besides, Darry _did _tell me I had to clean up.

I walked over to the desk, it was piled with up with papers and books, how Ponyboy could sit here for hours doing his homework was beyond me.

I started leafing through the papers and 'accidentally' pushed half of them off the desk

"Oops," _I'll just pick them up later_.

I notice this large stack of papers with a spiral binding and a title page.

I picked it up.

"The Outsiders" I read aloud from the very top of the paper. It had a big A+ printed on it.

I hadn't remembered seeing it before, and I was surprised. I hadn't known anyone, even Pony to write _that _much for a composition, and I thought who would've shown it to us. Pony was trying hard at school to please Darry, especially after the whole incident with Dally and Johnny.

I remembered back to just after the rumble with the socs, Darry had been yelling at Pony about some composition he had to write to keep from failing.

Apparently he did write it because he didn't fail, and I wondered in the back of my mind whether this was it.

I turned the page and began reading, in any case I didn't have anything better to do and I _was_ curious about what it was about. After all it was huge; it looked more like a book than a composition for English class. _"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home . . ."_


	2. Soda

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything from __**The Outsiders.

* * *

**_

Soda's POV

I wasn't too shocked by his actual writing since he's asked me to read over many of his compositions, and poems, and stuff before. But he had never shown it me or anyone else (except his teacher) that I know of.

When I read his description of me I couldn't help but smile, but I was still kind of shocked. I knew he looked up to me, but just not how much, it was kind of weird, made me feel like I should try o be a better example or something.

His description of Two-bit, Dally, and Johnny were all perfect and I knew that he understood Darry better now, but reading about how he thought of him before still made me wince.

The only other thing that bothered me was what he thought about Steve. Sure Steve didn't exactly _like _Pony. But I was sure that he didn't hate Pony either. I frowned; I would have to talk to them both about that later.

It still made me mad that those socs jumped Pony I mean he didn't do anything to them, well… at the time he hadn't done anything to them. I mean it was their fault anyway. Why couldn't they just mind their own business? Pony and Johnny were just kids after all.

I shook those thoughts off. I knew if I didn't stop now I never would.

When I read about Mickey Mouse, my horse, I stopped in astonishment. I didn't expect Pony to remember that at all. I mean he had cried with me, but he was just ten and I didn't expect him to still remember. It shocked me that he had written about it and even tried to save up for that old horse.

Plus it made me kind of mad that he would talk about that, but the Cherry girl couldn't be too bad. She had spied for us and seemed to treat Pony like any other person.

Maybe Pony had paid more attention then what me and Darry gave him credit for.

It was just that he always seemed like his head was in the clouds. Not that I thought that was a particularly bad thing. It was just the way he was. But I think that he knew more about people than he let on.

Again, I shook those thoughts off as I continued to read.

*******************************************************************************************

I was at the part where Pony and Johnny got jumped, right after Johnny killed the soc when I decided I needed a break. I couldn't remember when I had last read so much.

I glanced at the clock 12:24. Perfect, just in time for lunch. I hurriedly stacked the papers on Pony's desk back to where they originally were, or as close as I could get them.

I didn't want Pony to know I read the composition until after I finished it. I needed some time to think.

Surprisingly still no one was home and the house was quiet. It felt strange. The last time it had been this quiet Pony had been sick and either the gang (what was left of it) stayed away or were as quiet as possible.

I smiled at the memory of a quiet Two-bit that was something you didn't see everyday for sure, and of course it didn't last.

I grabbed I piece of chocolate cake before heading back up the stairs, I couldn't help myself. Normally I hated anything to do with reading, and I really felt that I could use a break. But it was the kind of book that no matter how much you wanted to you just couldn't stop reading.

* * *

_- Short, I know. I'm going to try to make the next chapter longer. I don't know whether Soda should talk to Pony about the composition first, or get the rest of the gang to read it. Either way the whole gang will read the composition, and Pony will find out. _

_Review and tell me what you think! I was going to set up a poll, but I thought that this would be easier. _


	3. Soda II

_I've been incredibly lazy, I know. I should have updated much sooner, but anyways here's the next chapter. From now on I'm going to try to reply to all my reviews either by email or posting it with the next chapter. I've decided to have Soda talk to Pony before showing the rest of the gang because I don't think he would do something like that without asking first. And yes Darry will read it.  
_

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from **_**The Outsiders**_

_**

* * *

  
**_

Soda's POV:

I kept reading till I finished the composition, even though some parts made me feel sick to my stomach, and it was killing me to sit still for so long.

I was _not _going to let reading this drag on any longer than it had to. Just thinking about it made me so mad I wanted to hurl the thing at the wall.

Besides I wanted to talk to Pony about it, and I would never here the end of it if someone came up here to find me reading.

When I was finally done it was 5:48PM. I was shocked, I had read that pretty fast, for me at least. I had just basically spent a whole day reading. I couldn't believe it, I hadn't read that much in a whole day ever.

But I guess it wasn't really like reading for me. Normally books are just filled with words, and none of it means much to me, but this is about my brothers, and friends, heck its about me.

It's a lot easier to read something I cared about. My mind drifted back to the theme. The part about the church and afterwards especially.

It reminded me of how everything can change in an instant. One minute our parents were alive and Darry was getting ready to go to college and everything, the next our parents were dead, Darry was stuck taking care of me and Pony, and our world was crashing down around us.

The thought kind of scared me. What would happen to us in a couple of years, we had already lost so much.

Johnny's letter was also kind of shocking, but I completely agreed with him. Pony was gold and I hoped that he could stay that way.

How Johnny was glad even though he was dying that he gave his life for a couple of kids kind of made me sad. I wondered if I could do the same thing. I wish that Ponyboy showed me the letter though. But it was kind of personal.

The sudden slam of the door startled me out of my daze.

"Hello," called out Two-bit cheerfully, "Anybody home?"

"Of course he is you dolt where else would he be it's his day off," grumbled Steve from downstairs. I hurried to shove the composition under a bunch of other papers and raced downstairs before they could come up.

"Hey there Soda I was beginning to think you were out with some girl," Two-bit joked, grinning.

"Oh, sure," I replied sarcastically, "I'll be out partying this early. The sun hasn't even gone down yet."

"It's never to early to go to a party," said Two-bit in a fake serious voice with his eyes wide like he was in shock.

"What were you doing anyway? You're normally bouncing all over the place by the time we get here and it's your day off." questioned Steve.

"Oh I wasn't doing anything, just lazing around," I replied, waving him off. "I'd better get dinner started, if I don't have work and I'm still late making dinner Darry's going to be blowing steam.

"That's what we came for." Two-bit said cheerily as he reached into the fridge for some beer.

"Don't go getting drunk before even having dinner," I warned, "Darry's irritated enough from you guys free-loading off of us without dealing with you drunk."

"I'm hurt," said Two-bit collapsing dramatically to the ground, before hopping back up again grinning. The gang knows that we would never kick any of them out.

I began taking random ingredients out of the fridge and cabinets.

"Umm… Soda what are you planning on making," asked Steve.

I shrugged, "Whatever I feel fits this beautiful day," I said throwing my arms out grandly and hitting Steve on his nose.

"Geesh, pay attention to where you put your arms Soda!" cried Steve as he rubbed his nose.

"Hey, do you guys know where Pony is? It's pretty late for him," I said ignoring Steve's grumbles.

"He's still at track practice, coach is working them hard because of the big meet coming up this weekend." said Two-bit.

"But it's almost six, school gets out at three," I protested.

"What can I say that coach is crazy," interjected Steve, still looking annoyed about his nose.

It would have probably turned into a wrestling match if I wasn't in the middle of cooking dinner and everyone wasn't starving.

We kept playfully bantering with each other until dinner time. Pony had come in and immediately went up to take a shower and Darry came in about five minutes after him. My mind went back to Pony's composition, I would really have to talk to him about that tonight.

* * *

_I hope you liked it. This was the first time I included actual dialog, and I want to know how you guys thought I did with Two-bit and Steve. I hoped I kept them in character. I'm thinking of updating this every 1 or 2 weeks, but no promises. I do promise that this story will be finished at some point even if it seems to take forever. I know that it seemed a little rushed but I'm going to add more of Soda's thoughts on the theme in the next chapter. _

_I'm starting a new story about the Harry Potter series, during the Marauder Era. I hope you'll take a look at it and review. _


	4. Telling Ponyboy

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from **_**Outsiders**_

Pony's POV:

I came in from track around six, and went to wash up before dinner. I was thinking about the book we had to read in English, A Midsummer's nights Dream by Shakespeare, I thought it was a pretty good book, and we had to write a literary response on it.

Darry sighed, "Soda couldn't you have made a normal meal for once?

"Nope"

I looked at the food I had loaded on to my plate for the first time. It was mashed potatoes, and chicken. The chicken was normal colored but he had made the mashed potatoes blue some how.

"I don't even want to know what you did to it"

"It was just a little food coloring." He protested.

"I'll just stick to the chicken." said Steve dryly.

I finished eating, but left the mashed potatoes untouched.

"Darry, I'm heading up to do my homework now, ok?" Darry glanced up.

"Sure"

It was about ten by the time I finished and that's when Soda came up.

"Pony can I talk to you?"

"Umm, yeah. What is it?"

I wondered if something had happened. Soda is never this hesitant, at least not with me.

Seeing the look on my face he quickly explained, "Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to talk about your composition."

A wave of shock hit me. Had he seen it? Had he read it? _Calm down I told myself, it's just Soda, he'll understand, besides he probably didn't even read it. It might be some other composition. Oh, who am I kidding, why would Soda care about any other composition but that one I thought scathingly as panic engulfed my mind once more._

"You know the one about, about what happened that week you spent in Windixerville." He said casually

"uh-huh" I rummaged through the papers on my desk absently, without any real purpose except hoping that Soda would get that I didn't really want to talk about it and just drop the subject. I felt like groaning, he had to read that composition. Of course.

"How come you didn't tell me about it or even Darry."

_Oh crap, I thought, he sounded kind of hurt._

"I didn't mean anything by it; I just didn't want to make a big deal of it" I said hurriedly

"It was really good Pony. I really think you should show Darry.

If I had been drinking anything right then I would have spat it out the way they do in movies and TV shows. _Yeah sure I'd show Darry, he'd take it way to serious and make a big deal of it._ Don't get me wrong, I loved Soda and Darry and I didn't even mind that Soda had read it though it was a little embarrassing, but Darry? I just didn't think that he would understand.

"Pony," he said seriously.

I jerked my head up, sighed and looked at him. Soda was already in bed, watching me.

"Come over here." I got up and sat on the bed next to him

Hesitantly he began. "Ever since you know what, you've been really distant with us. Hell, you've been really distant with me. We're worried about you Pone, especially Darry. He still thinks the whole thing is his fault and you being so closed off isn't helping him any."

I felt guilty. I knew that both Soda and Darry really did care, and I didn't want to hurt them, but it was so hard to talk about it. Writing about it wasn't nearly as hard and the strange thing was I didn't mind my teacher reading that composition at all, but I guess I cared a lot more about what the people who were close to me thought of it. Maybe it would be better if we all got some closure. _Maybe._

"Alright, I'll let Darry read it. I'll even let Two-bit and Steve read it, but they better not laugh." I warned.

Soda grinned up at me from under the blanket. "Of course not. There's one other thing I want to talk about."

I groaned again "What"

"Steve"

"Ugh"

_The last part was from the line earlier in the story when Soda says he'll have to talk to Pony about thinking that Steve hated him. I'm not planning on writing out that conversation, so don't expect it to be a part of the next chapter. Maybe I'll put write it as a oneshot later._


End file.
